


California Dreamin'

by chickenlivesinpumpkin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood and Violence, F/M, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV Outsider, Pining, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21976999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenlivesinpumpkin/pseuds/chickenlivesinpumpkin
Summary: Steve and Bucky are living in different narratives.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	California Dreamin'

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially the story of what happens when the goofy Clint of the Matt Fraction comics is forced to witness the moment when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. 
> 
> In other words, despite the initially light-hearted tone of Clint’s narration, this is not a happy story.

You’d think, given how many times they’ve been attacked in New York, that Tony would’ve installed a better backup security system in the tower.

Okay, in fairness, Clint has to admit that Tony did improve some of the security. There’s lasers now. Some kind of beeping thing goes off if you land there without one of the tracker dealies that Tony puts in everyone’s suits these days. The windows are some kind of mondo bullet-proof glass, and the only things that could get through it now are Tony’s repulsors. And Steve’s shield. Well, and the Hulk. And probably Barnes’s creepy arm. Almost definitely Barnes’s arm. Actually, it’s probably only Clint and Nat who can’t get through the glass, which seems kind of rude now that Clint thinks about it.

They’re already having a day, but it’s a _Threat Level Midnight_ kind of day so far, the sort where everything that can go wrong will, but in a way that’s more of a pain in the ass than legitimately dangerous.

First, the Assemble alarm came at, like, six a.m. on a Sunday, which no. There wasn’t time for coffee, so his brain isn’t fully functioning.

Second, Clint’s been dodging these little robot guys for what seems like an hour, and they’re mostly banging into every available surface and delivering mild electrical shocks. Which is bad, seeing as the average New Yorker will not be deterred from his or her chosen path even when confronted with little robot guys delivering electric shocks. They will, however, get pissed off and glare at you about it when it happens.

Eventually, Clint decides signage is in order. Natasha covers him while he paints some dour warnings, using the refill capsule from his ink arrow and some stolen manila folders from a busted-open briefcase that a lawyer-type person had ditched when he got shocked. Clint ends up with a very evocative design in his opinion. It’s an excellent likeness of a little robot guy and it has some guns going _pew pew_ and he made some lightning squiggles too, because of the electricity. He holds the signs up to show the rest of the team, because he’s appropriately proud of how good they’ve turned out, particularly because he’d basically been reduced to finger painting. He’d done it pretty quickly too, especially considering that he’d had to make several different copies, since New Yorkers will walk blithely into danger from literally any direction, given the chance. Even _south._

If he’s honest, it kind of hurts his feelings that Steve barely glances in his direction before he’s all, “It doesn’t need a picture, Clint. Just make it clear that they should go around the tower for the foreseeable future. And hurry up. We don’t have much time.” Then he walks away with his shoulders straight and Captainly, oblivious to the fact that his uniform is basically a giant blue condom.

Nat makes a face at Steve’s back for him, which is why she’s his favorite.

“I made the robot say _pew pew,_ ” Clint tells her sadly, and Nat pats him on the arm. It makes his whole body tingle. He can feel it in his throat especially. His throat and his dick. Mostly his dick. But a little bit his throat. And his chest. He feels it everywhere, is the point.

Clint tells his body to knock it off, but he’s long since stopped expecting it to listen. It’s been years now of his body ignoring him when she touches him the way any friend would. He reminds himself of that all the time: Friends. They’re F-R-I-E-N-S.

Oops, missed a D in there.

And if that traitorous, hopeful voice in the back of his head says _Nat doesn’t have friends._ _Certainly not friends she touches. It means something that she touches you,_ well, that’s because he’s an idiot.

 _Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen, Gretchen,_ he tells that traitor voice whenever it tries to argue that Nat just needs time or something. _It’s not going to happen._

Ha. _Mean Girls._

The traitor voice tries to argue, because that’s what traitor voices do. They tell you all the pretty things and promise that if you just do x, y, and z, those pretty things will come to pass, but the traitor voice doesn’t really give a shit about, like, reality or other people’s interior lives or where certain lines are and how bad crossing those lines can be. The traitor voice doesn’t care about how much work you’ve put into learning to love people who have made it clear (kindly, gently, but unequivocally) that they’re only ever going to give you roughly 43% of themselves, even if you want 100%.

The point is that the traitor voice is telling him that he’s got a chance, and Clint. Well. Clint knows better. It’s not pessimism. It’s not insecurity. It’s—he doesn’t want to be _that guy._ You know. The one who won’t take no for an answer. Natasha’s had too much _that guy_ in her life already, even if he’s mostly taken shapes that look like Red Rooms and Russia and SHIELD.

No, really the point is that it’s already been kind of a stupid day even before the bad-security-in-the-tower-thing starts. Not terrible. Just…stupid.

Although, counterpoint, they only had to go downstairs to fight crime instead of to Hondourus—Hondurus—Hondorous—Argentina, like last week. That’s nice.

Relatedly, it’s nice not to have to take the Quinjet anywhere, since it still smells like puke from when one of those bat creatures flew into one of the engines back in Hondar—Argentina and the resulting spiral had Steve and Hulk and Clint doing the heave all over. Clint did it while landing the jet without casualties, which he’s super proud of. Natasha hadn’t thrown up, because she’s Natasha, although she’d been about the shade of the Hulk by the time Clint wrestled them to the ground. You know you love someone when their green, try-not-to-puke-face makes you feel things.

Still, nice not to have to sit in puke-smell on the way to save the day. So that’s good.

Anyway, the real, whole, actualfax point is that there are little robot guys assaulting the sidewalk outside of the tower, the excellent signs that Clint made to direct the populace around the block are going to waste because New Yorkers are assholes who don’t appreciate good artwork, and Argentina is not where they went last week, except for how it is now.

He feels kind of bad about pretending that Hondrunas is Argentina now. He’s sure it’s a great country. It’s not Hondurass’s fault that Clint can’t get things right. He shouldn’t keep changing things to fit his own failures and weaknesses.

*

Hunduras? Handuros? Honduras?

No, it’s definitely Hunduras.

*

So it’s a _Threat Level Midnight_ day. Shitty in all the ways that are annoying, but a normal amount and type of shitty. Not enough sleep, not enough caffeine, mild workplace annoyance, Natasha being perfect and not his, Steve not appreciating fine artwork, nothing to write home about.

Then the robots suddenly swarm. There’s hundreds where there’d been dozens before. People are screaming, because the mild electric shocks are dropping them into seizures right there on the sidewalk left and right. Thor gets zapped and loses his shit and directs lightning into a shop across the street and suddenly there’s fire.

*

Clint’s not really paying attention to the how or why at first. They’re too overwhelmed. When he finds time, he manages to be grateful that Thor is there despite the accidental fires, because his lightning is the only thing besides Tony’s repulsors that’s doing anything to these little robot guys. Except Thor’s being kind of hesitant now because he’s worried about exploding stuff or getting a shouty New Yorker hit with friendly fire/lightning. Plus he’s the good kind of guy who doesn’t want to hit his teammates, who are, admittedly, sort of running around everywhere.

It would’ve been easier to handle all of this if New Yorkers would lower themselves to read the occasional _sign._

Which is something Steve apparently gloms onto, because over the comms Clint can hear him orchestrating with local police to set up a perimeter and then he sends Thor one way and Hulk the other to back the cops up and keep the little robot guys contained.

Clint’s distraction gets him zapped then, and even through the special insulated leather that Tony’s built into his suit, it’s enough that he feels it in his teeth, gets dropped flat, loses all his breath. He manages to stick an arrow in it, but fuck, fuck, _fuck._ He maybe makes a noise that is undignified.

Natasha wrenches him up, her blue eyes narrowed, her mouth set. “You all right?”

“I’m all right,” he gasps, his knees like water, and she nods once and turns away, believing him. Her biggest flaw in life as a human being is that she tends to believe him when he says things, which is weird, because she believes literally no one else ever. But she believes him when he says things like _I’m all right,_ and _yes, I can handle being friends,_ and _I can draw effective robot warning signs._

He is really very grateful to know Tony Stark in that moment, though. The guy on the ground beside him has foam coming out of his mouth.

*

Falcon shows up then, which is nice.

He immediately orders them all to start turning any nearby victims onto their sides so they don’t choke on their own vomit. Clint bends and rolls the foamy guy over.

“Tell me someone called ambulances,” Clint says into the comms.

“Emergency personnel are waiting around the corner beyond the perimeter,” Sam replies. “No point in them coming in until this mess is handled though. We’ll just end up with more bodies on the street.”

They’re in a fair bit of trouble. Clint’s firing as fast as he can, but he’s using his arrows like knives as often as he’s using them as projectiles; the little robot guys are just _everywhere._ Tony’s shooting beams every which way, but he’s got to be careful with civilians convulsing all over the place. Steve’s batting at the little robot guys with the shield and then driving it down into them, making them go crunch. Natasha’s shooting her pistol with one hand and throwing her Widow’s Bites left and right and center with the other hand, and the Bites are working better than the gun, but you try getting her to give up her gun, you just try it.

“Can you start carrying—” Steve’s voice falters abruptly, followed by a faint sizzling noise that makes Clint flinch because he recognizes it. A second later, Steve lets out a grunt. It’s much more dignified than the sound Clint had made. He tells himself that that’s because Steve has a super-serum that makes him extra butch. Steve doesn’t even lose his train of thought, the jerk. There’s just another brief pause, and then he says tightly, “Can you start carrying people out to the ambulances, Sam?”

“I’m on it, Cap. Could use some cover.”

“I’m on your six, Falcon,” Clint says. “Do what you gotta do.”

Clint takes shots as Sam flies from one seizing person to another, checking them, turning some of them over, leaving some behind without turning them—the dead ones, Clint realizes—and finally picking one up, a limp old lady, her skirt flapping like a flag in the air as Falcon soars above the tumult to the perimeter, Hulk roaring as he clears a path for him.

Then Clint doesn’t have time to help Sam anymore because he has little robot guys surrounding him. And he’s not alone. They’re all overrun. The little robot guys simply won’t stop coming.

It gets bad enough that he wishes Barnes were down here helping, because that metal arm could probably tear right through whatever the little robot guys are made of. Although maybe he doesn’t wish it, because Barnes is sort of an unknown factor. There are still bruises on Steve’s arms from time to time, although that’s way less frequent than it had been. Barnes has been in therapy, Clint knows, because once, months ago, Steve showed up with a black eye and waved off all the concern with, _he had a bad day at therapy and I pushed where I shouldn’t have, that’s all._ Once, Clint had heard from Tony that he’d had to have a window on Steve’s floor replaced because there’d been some kind of incident. But that’d all been months ago. Maybe even almost a year now.

The guy’s always been fine when Clint’s seen him lately. He comes to group dinners now. Occasionally comes to the gym to watch the rest of them train. He’s quiet and sort of hunched and likely to flinch at loud noises, but he’s mostly fine. He sits at tables like a normal person. He responds if you talk to him. He and Clint once talked about how much mind control sucks, if “talked about it” can mean that Clint said _mind control sucks, huh_ and Barnes had grunted a sound that definitely meant _tell me about it_ before he got up and left. Clint’s no judge, and there’s obviously still a lot of room for improvement, but it’s enough that Clint would’ve described Barnes as fragile rather than crazy.

Except Natasha is on the side of still-crazy, which means Clint’s on that side too. Not—it’s not because he likes her or anything. It’s just that he trusts her judgment. He can admit that that his innate desire to believe that Barnes is okay now may be Clint’s traitor voice at work a little. The traitor voice is reliable about two things—Natasha being into him (she’s not) and Clint being good again after all the shit Loki made him do (jury’s out on that one still). Clint’s got some investment in the idea that a person can be mind-controlled into killing people and can get better, okay? Regardless, Clint’s never gone wrong following Natasha’s lead.

Plus, crazy or not, maybe the metal arm would be controlled by the same force that’s directing the little robot guys, and that wouldn’t be good.

And—there—oops, gotta—“Sorry, ma’am,” Clint yells at a woman, sort of insincerely because let’s face it, if you’re still on this street despite the hurricane of little robot guys and the piles of seizing New Yorkers, Darwin has some things to say to you, but hey, he’s not judging, except for how he is, because he had to wade in to save her dumb ass.

*

So he supposes he’s not really paying attention to the bigger picture at first, what with being overwhelmed and all. He’s paying attention to the comms, of course he is, but not with anything but abstraction until Tony starts freaking out because Jarvis goes radio silent.

Which goes back to Clint’s earlier argument that they really have got to do something more about the security in the tower.

“I’ve got to get up there,” Steve says, smashing something with his shield and taking off across the sidewalk as fast as he can, which isn’t very fast seeing as it’s littered with little robot guys and seizing people and he keeps stopping to make sure no one’s going to die. “God, Tony, how did they get into the tower? You said you upgraded the security, Tony, that no one could get in!” Steve sounds snappish which, yes, Clint agrees, he was there for that conversation, and he’s a little annoyed himself that—

“No one’s in the tower,” Tony snaps back. “Stay put. Shut up. Jarvis, buddy, can you read me? Could use a little—”

“How could they not be in the tower?” Steve asks. “You heard it yourself, Jarvis is down, someone must’ve—”

“I don’t have time to explain a quarter century of computer basics to you right now, Rogers, but _remote access_ is a thing,” Tony snaps back, which, okay, good point, and since they—meaning the Avengers—are all here right now, twenty feet from the tower, it seems sort of obvious and accurate that remote access would have to be the thing that’s happening.

“So he’s okay?” Steve asks, pausing by the glass door that leads to the tower lobby, and oh, well, that explains it, because he and Barnes are still—well, they’re weird, is what they are, and not just because Barnes is trying to be not-crazy and Steve might be still-crazy when it comes to Barnes—

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Rogers, your boyfriend is fine and I’m dealing with it, but I can’t deal with it with you bleating in my ear!” Tony is still snapping, and Clint nods as he stabs a little robot guy in the red blinky thing that might be an eye, because he agrees, it’s hard to concentrate when people are yelling at you.

Steve mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like _he’s not my boyfriend,_ which Clint calls bullshit on. Steve and Barnes may not be having sex, but they’re not friends, either. Friends are what you get when two trees grow side by side, grow straight up, grow hale and healthy in a way that means they provide a windbreak and shade for each other, sharing in the nutrients in the soil, but you could still cut one down without losing the other. Steve and Barnes are this bizarre megatree, the sort of monstrosity that you get when you graft two living things into one, the roots growing into a single capillary system, the trunks bridging, the branches forming into knots.

At least, that’s the impression that Clint gets from Steve and his massive amounts of devotion and determination. Maybe it’s not the same for Barnes. In which case, Steve's not wrong. They’re not boyfriends. They’re just friends. Clint and Nat are friends, after all, even though that’s not the word he would choose, given the choice. The person who says the word _friends_ first is always right.

“You better be right, Tony,” Steve says, and there’s another bang of the shield.

“I’m right,” Tony says. “Working now, call back later, shut your face please. Jarvis, buddy, come _on…_ ”

Not long after, Clint pauses to look upward for a perch, because this is stupid and ineffectual the way they’re doing this and Steve is too distracted now to really, like, _lead_ the team, and Natasha’s got that straight mouth thing that she does when she’s getting fed up and is about to go Handle Shit Herself, which usually is really cool to watch but occasionally ends with all of them getting yelled at by the mayor and the press and Steve doesn’t seem in the proper mindset to deal with lectures with his usual aplomb. Steve keeps glancing over at the glass front doors to the tower lobby with a longing furrow in his brow.

So, perch. Except when Clint looks up, a dot catches his eye. “Uh, guys? There’s something up there.” He squints. “There’s a chopper hovering over the tower.”

There’s a brief pause. Not in the fighting, because they’re all professionals who aren’t going to die for dramatic occasion, but on the radio. It’s pure emptiness for a second, nothing but the residual sounds of each of them killing things.

Then Steve says, “Bucky. Tony, it’s HYDRA, it’s a _distraction,_ this is all a _distraction,_ they want—”

Before he can finish it, Tony rockets up into the sky in a blaze of repulsor beams, and Steve just, like, fucking _abandons_ the street level discourse. He goes through robots and citizens alike on his way back inside.

“Sam,” Steve gasps.

“On it, Cap, go get your boy,” Falcon says.

“I shall remain here as well, Captain,” Thor booms, “and dispatch these metallic monsters.”

“Hulk stay,” Hulk yells, and uses a massive green paddle of a hand to whale on some more little robot guys. Nat’s already on the run after Steve, which means Clint doesn’t have someone smarter than him to tell him what to do, and hell with it, he wants to know what’s happening, so he heads inside too.

“Let me know if you two need help, big guy, and I’ll come back,” Clint calls to Hulk as he goes.

“Help,” Hulk says scornfully, and throws a broken robot at him. Clint dodges because he’s cool like that.

*

The power’s off inside. No red exit signs. No lights. Not even the backup lights are lit. The elevators are dead. There’s a loud bang from his right, and when he looks over, he can just see a flash of red as Natasha follows Steve into the stairwell.

Clint follows.

With the emergency stuff off, the stairwells are soupy black, and he’s immediately blind. He does. Not. Like. That. Without his hearing aids, the world gets distant, but he can still function, he still has the things he needs most, but this is—he needs his eyes. He’s Hawkeye, not Hawkear, and there’s a reason for that.

He stops, breathes, closes his eyes. There. No need to panic. It’s dark because his eyes are closed, that’s all. He’s got this. It’s a training exercise. He puts a hand out, groping in the air, and finds the metal bannister. He traces it up, finds the first stair with a toe. He’s careful up the first two flights, learning the distances, the width of the landings, but eventually he’s got a mental picture that he can trust. He picks up the pace.

He follows the sound of Steve’s very distant pounding feet. He can’t hear Natasha because she’s Natasha, but that’s okay. Steve’s loud enough for all three of them.

“Tony, report,” Steve says over the radio. He barely sounds out of breath. Jerk.

“One minute,” Tony says, and in the background there’s the sound of his repulsor beams and some gunfire. “There’s a fucking swarm of dudes up here. More than one chopper was dropping guys off, that’s a fact. No idea of the numbers. And the door’s braced from the inside, so some of them have already gotten in. Brace yourselves for multiple players.”

“I’m on my way,” Steve says.

There’s more repulsor fire, and then there’s silence. “Last chopper’s bugging out. Sending a tracker to land on it…now. You good down there? Need backup? ‘Cuz if you don’t, I’m gonna get going on some stuff. Jarvis. Lights. A dance number or two. Things like that.”

“I’ve got it,” Steve bites out. “Just get cracking.”

“Cracking? Really? Ugh. You’re so old.”

Clint has no idea what floor he’s on. His thighs are burning. He’s dripping sweat. He’s probably gross and smelly because he’s on the thirtieth floor. Ish. Fortieth. Maybe.

“That’s twenty-three,” Natasha calls from several flights above him, as if she can read his mind, and maybe she can.

That traitorous, lying voice in his head says, _It’s because you’re a megatree too. She just won’t admit it because she’s scared._

Tiredly, he tells the voice, _stop trying to make 'fetch' happen, Gretchen._

The voice sullenly falls silent.

Also, how the hell are they only on the twenty-third floor? They’ve been climbing stairs for like five hours.

Five more hours and suddenly Steve is yelling, “Tony, the stairwell stops on sixty-one!”

“Yeah. I know. That’s a thing. We don’t want people just wandering into Avengers headquarters from the street, you know? Why do you think I’m finagling instead of following bad guys around in my building? Now shut up. I’m concentrating.”

“I can’t get there from here?” Steve asks, sounding bewildered, like it honestly never occurred to him that there might be an obstacle between himself and Barnes that he couldn’t tear down.

“If you let me concentrate so I can get the elevators working you can,” Tony snaps.

Clint’s legs are hurting so, so bad. He keeps going. He’s an Avenger. He decides to add more squats to his workout routine. Jesus, Steve must have thighs of iron. It’s so dark. It’s like the darkness of Loki in his head, although also not remotely like that darkness. It’s a blind-not-like-Loki-but-also-like-Loki darkness and it’s…wow, it’s a lot. It’s. A Lot.

“Thirty-nine,” Natasha’s disembodied voice warbles through the darkness. Because she knows he’s trying not to freak out in all this inky blindness. She knows it so she’s giving him her voice as a touchstone, reminding him he’s not alone. That it’s temporary.

He loves her. God, so much. The ache in his chest is second only to the ache in his legs, because oh my god _the pain._

There’s another pause on the radio, and then Steve, agonized, says, “Tony, I can _hear them._ Get me onto this elevator now, or I’m going through the ceiling.”

“I know, I know, shut up, I know, Jesus, slow your roll.”

There’s three more seconds of silence, and then Steve says, “Fuck this.”

The silence then is a bit stunned because somehow this is the man who once told them off for using bad language on the comms, and then there’s a dull metallic thud and a weird wobbly metallic sound, and a grunt, and—

“Rogers, you better not be climbing up the elevator shaft,” Tony says, sounding resigned to it already.

“You do things your way, I do them mine.”

“It won’t let you in,” Tony says. “The doors on the Avengers floors are solid steel, and their fallback positions are magnetized in such—you know what, go nuts. Knock yourself out. Let’s see what you got, Cap. Just be really fucking careful when the power comes back on, because solid steel waits for no super-soldier, if you get what I’m saying.”

“Two floors left,” Natasha says, finally starting to sound strained.

“So many stairs,” Clint moans. He understands now why Hulk used to get so mad whenever they made him take the stairs. Of course, consider the source. And Clint’s not mad. Clint just wants to lie down and cut his legs off.

“Decapitation,” Tony adds. “That’s what I’m saying.”

Dull gray light from above. He perks up, finds a last burst of energy, sees that Natasha’s propped the door open for him, and he could kiss her. If she’d let him. She’s sweaty and her hair is sticking to her cheek, but her gaze is cool as she looks around the sixty-first floor elevator bay. Most of the elevators are plain silver, doors closed. This one, the special Avengers one, the only elevator that goes from the lobby all the way to the penthouse, is bronze, and the doors are wide open. The brass plate on the wall beside it says, _restricted access only._ There’s a card reader.

“Do I have a card?” he asks Natasha. Usually Jarvis just opens the special elevator for him when he gets close enough. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder what might happen without Jarvis around to recognize him.

She ignores him. “Tony, what’s the ETA on these elevators?”

“Uh…uh…uh…” Tony says, and then the lights come up. The elevators make a _ping._ The doors open. “Uh, minus three seconds,” Tony says. “You’re slow. Why’d you take so long? I’ve been waiting. I’m ready. Coming down from the roof. I’ll meet you on ninety-five.”

Ninety-five is Steve’s floor. Where he’s living with Barnes.

Natasha and Clint bundle into the open elevator. Clint loves elevators. They are the best modern invention.

“That was a lot of stairs,” Clint tells Natasha.

She looks up at the little numbers. Sixty-four. Sixty-five. Sixty-six. He wonders if Steve is still in the shaft. If they’re gonna run him over. Probably not. He’s pretty strong. He probably climbed the cables like the old ropes in gym, easy peasy.

“My legs are basically jello,” Clint announces. “Are your legs jello? Probably not.”

She ignores him.

They’re quiet for a minute. Watching the elevator numbers together.

“Hey, sixty-nine,” they say at the same time, and his heart goes gooey in his chest. He knows that she didn’t say it because she loves sixty-nine references. She said it because _he_ loves sixty-nine references and she’s mocking him and showing him how much she knows and loves him—as a friend, as a coworker, as an individual tree with independent roots—at the same time.

 _That’s not the sort of thing you do with a coworker,_ the traitor voice says.

 _Shut up with that heresy,_ he tells it.

*

The doors open on ninety-five. They get out. The doors close behind them.

Steve’s place is a mirror image of Clint’s, as neither of them felt the need to request changes to the basic floor plan during construction, despite Tony’s moaning about individualism and efficiency and manifest destiny, whatever that is. Clint’s ceilings are higher, because a low ceiling makes him hunch, but that’s the only difference. Which means that the elevator opens into a long hallway: blank wall on the left, on the other side of which is the living room and kitchen, and a long stretch of windows on the right. The windows can be tinted with the push of a button, and right now, they’re dark enough that it takes Clint’s eyes a second to adjust after coming out of the well-lit elevator.

So he doesn’t see the bodies at first. In fact, he doesn’t realize there’s there a problem until Natasha inhales a millisecond faster than she normally would.

Then he sees them. Seven probably, although a couple are piled together, so it could be more or less. Black helmets, Uzis, utility knives. Blood. The walls are covered in it. He can smell it, thick and meaty and coating the inside of his nostrils. The nearest body has a broken neck, the head turned all the way around, the bones of the spine erupting from the skin. Clint is tempted to be sick. He’s humiliated by the idea, so he won’t, he _won’t._ He can’t look anymore, though. He breathes through his mouth.

“Barnes,” Clint whispers. This is definitely not Steve’s work. Even in the worst fights, Steve never forgets his own strength, never pulls moves like this. Steve talks them down where he can, knocks them out if he can’t, kills if he must. But there’s nothing brutal in his brand of battle. Steve never butchers, and that’s what this is. Butchery.

“Is the power still out, Tony?” Natasha asks very softly, but her eyes travel to meet Clint’s. She’d heard him. She knows what it means. A bit of additional evidence for the Still-Crazy club.

“No,” Tony says. “Power’s on, but system reboot automatically turns off all the lights so we aren’t burning electricity in empty rooms whenever it comes back on. You know. Circumstances, evil, never know what might’ve happened in the dark—not the point. But we don’t want to send staff, like, through the whole building to turn off—you know what? I don’t care. It’s boring. I’m bored. Flip a switch if you feel like it, should be a thing. I’m on my way.”

The elevator behind them whirs. Going up to the roof to collect Tony. Clint never really feels unsafe as long as Nat is with him, but he has to admit, if Barnes has gone full Winter Soldier, it’ll be nice to have Iron Man here as backup.

Natasha pulls her guns.

Clint readies his bow.

They exchange a glance— _I’m ready, are you ready? I already said I was!—_ and then move forward.

Within only a few steps, a rhythmic pounding becomes audible. Faster than you’d punch a heavy bag, not as fast as you’d punch a speed bag. Then, a few steps more—that body has no eye, there’s no _eye,_ and that reminds him of Loki and the—Nat nudges him. He blinks, and then hears a murmur that turns into Steve saying, “Buck, come on. Hey. It’s okay. You can stop now.”

The hallway ends, opens up in the same kind of big, open concept that Clint has. A kitchen with a breakfast bar, a living room, windows everywhere.

Clint hasn’t been here before. Steve guards their privacy, talks about safe spaces a lot, about Barnes having someplace he can go where there’s no risk of other people. It shows in the apartment’s setup. There’s not much Steve here. It’s all Barnes—the windows are tinted to the same heavy gradation as the ones in the hallway, giving the place a cave-like atmosphere. The decor is simple and sparse, like no one’s had the time or energy to put into decorating. A radio, but no television. A blanket here. A throw pillow there. The counters are bare. No knife blocks. No blender. Nothing glass. Nothing that could be used as a weapon.

Turns out, Barnes hadn’t needed one.

There are more bodies here, four more, laid out in a rough square, like they’d come at Barnes from all sides, all at the same time, surrounding him. One of them has a black-bladed knife lodged in the cheekbone. It matches the knife clutched in another man’s limp hand. Barnes had used their own weapons against them.

Now he’s in the corner, leaning over the last body, straddling it, the metal fist punching down rhythmically, lost to the movement. There’d been a face once, but it’s an open maw of white bone and pink-gray soup now, not even a visible skull left, just a cracked open bowl, and now that that’s been fully obliterated, Barnes—the Soldier, maybe, Clint’s not sure, God, he can’t breathe, how can he be sure if he can’t breathe enough to think—has shifted down, started beating through the tac vest into the chest.

“Bucky,” Steve’s saying. If he knows they’re there, he doesn’t give sign of it. “Hey, buddy. You gotta stop, okay?”

Natasha doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t make a sound that Clint can hear. But all the same, Barnes suddenly freezes. His head turns. There’s no one home. His lips are pulled back away from his teeth, his eyes are wide and staring, but he keys in on Natasha instantly. Except there must be someone home, Clint thinks, because Barnes had known somehow that she was the biggest threat in the room. He’s not worried about Clint, and on some level, Barnes knows Steve’s equally useless. Nat, on the other hand…

Barnes rushes her and Clint lifts his bow even as Nat shoves him out of the way, knocking him to his knees because he doesn’t expect it. He loses his shot, can only stare up in horror at her as she holsters her guns. If it were anyone else, the move would’ve left her open to harm, but she recovers fast, settling into a stance, and her pistols are holstered, why the _hell_ would she do that, and then Barnes is—

Is on the ground. Steve on his back, holding on for dear life as Barnes struggles. “Bucky,” Steve’s pleading. “Come on, Buck, come back to me, this isn’t you—”

Barnes rolls them over. They scrabble, push, kick—or Barnes does, something panicked in his movements now, something unorganized and desperate, and he seems to be more interested in getting away than attacking now, but Clint wouldn’t be willing to risk lives over it, and apparently neither is Steve, because he clings like a burr, locking Barnes’s arms to his sides, using all of his weight and strength to keep him contained.

Barnes writhes, making a high thin sound, a sort of whimper that makes Clint embarrassed somehow, because it’s hard to hear, the sound of fear and hopelessness at once, and Steve’s eyes close, his head drops to land between Barnes’s shoulder blades, but he holds on. He talks the whole time, soft reassurances that would be more convincing if his voice weren’t shaking.

Clint doesn’t move, afraid to attract Barnes’s attention, afraid of triggering whatever had originally been in charge of Barnes's body, the thing that’d wasted roughly a dozen guys in the most vicious way possible and rushed a woman he knew and even sort of seemed to like—as much as Barnes likes anyone these days, anyway, which is to say that he gave her his fortune cookie once and doesn’t tense up if she sits next to him at group dinners.

He glances at Nat, furious and scared that she’d shoved him out of the way, and that stupid fucking voice is saying _what do you have to say for yourself now, still friends, huh, still think she doesn’t care about you? Tell me another reason for that shove, huh?_

 _Of course she cares about me,_ Clint tells it, weary of his own honesty. _That was never the problem._

Barnes’s big barrel chest is heaving, the sound of thin animal panic slackening off.

“Easy,” Steve’s whispering. “You’re safe. We’re safe, Buck. It’s over. Breathe. Breathe for me.”

Behind them, Tony whispers, “Holy fuck.”

Barnes jumps at his voice but doesn’t do anything else. He lets his head fall down against the carpet. His eyes close.

“There we go,” Steve murmurs. “There we go. You know where we are?”

There’s a long pause. Then, rusty-hacksaw-voiced, Barnes says, “The tower.”

“That’s right, Buck,” Steve says, sounding relieved. Pleased. “That’s right, we’re home. I’m gonna sit up a little, Buck. You gonna fight me again?”

Barnes swallows hard and turns his face away.

“Okay,” Steve says, and sits up. He rolls Barnes over beneath him until he’s sort of straddling Barnes’s chest, the same way Barnes had been straddling that corpse a minute ago. Clint winces, but Barnes doesn’t do anything. He just lies there under Steve. “Okay,” Steve says again, and exhales. “Okay.”

Barnes is wearing a plain white T-shirt and gray pajama pants. Sunday morning clothes. They do nothing to conceal that he’s liberally covered in blood. His shirt is so wet it’s clinging to him. The pants are spattered. There’s droplets all over his face and throat, and as Clint watches, Steve picks a bit of lumpy brain tissue out of Barnes’s hair and flicks it aside.

After a moment, Barnes says, still in that terrible voice that makes Clint think of grinding metal, “Are any of them alive?”

Tony makes a soft scoffing noise, but it’s not amused. It’s sort of horrified. It’s the sound the inside of Clint’s brain makes at Barnes’s words. The amount of overkill in this room is like something out of a horror movie.

“Don’t worry about that,” Steve says, gentle, smoothing his thumb over Barnes’s cheek, smearing blood in the process.

“They came in,” Barnes mutters. “They wanted me to go with them.”

“They broke in,” Steve corrects. “They came here to hurt you. You didn’t have a choice.”

“Didn’t I?” Barnes asks. He doesn’t open his eyes. He’s not looking for an answer, or at least, not from Steve.

Steve answers anyway. “No. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I had a choice. I made this one.”

“Buck, you’re not—you’re not stable yet. Of course this is the choice you made—not that they gave you one. But this—this is what happens when bad guys attack someone that they’ve already hurt. They—this is them. Okay? They brought this on themselves. This isn’t on you.”

“I should’ve—I should’ve—”

“Buck—”

“Oh, God, what did I do?” Barnes’s voice wobbles, and then he’s crying, soft, broken sobs, his face turned into the carpet.

Clint shouldn’t be here. This is terrible. Terrible to watch, terrible to hear, terrible to know. This is—God, he can’t know this. He can’t look down, but he can feel the sodden carpet beneath his boot. It’s so wet with blood that it’ll squish if he shifts his weight and he still kind of wants to be sick. He’s shaking, partly from his muscles being tired from all the stairs, but also just because this is wrong. On a fundamental level, this is wrong. This isn’t good guy stuff, and Steve, whispering soothing things, rubbing blood comfortingly into Barnes’s skin because there’s literally no place to touch him comfortingly that isn’t spattered, Steve doesn’t get it, but Barnes does. Barnes does, and he’s sobbing it into the carpet.

Clint doesn’t know what the hell to do. He glances at Natasha, but she’s not looking at him. She’s watching Steve and Barnes, and there’s an expression on her face that he’s never seen before. Grief. But also resignation. Something close to what Clint privately thinks of as her Russian Face. The one she makes when she’s seeing an inevitable horror unfolding and won’t stir a finger to stop it. Natasha has a unique relationship with suffering: she greets it like it’s an old friend; witnesses it like it’s a holy event; respects it to a level that Clint would call phobia in anyone else.

She was wearing that face when Clint found her all those days ago, hunched like a hunted dog, empty pistols abandoned on the cement at her sides where she was kneeling, her cheekbones sharp with hunger, lips bloodless. _Are you here to kill me,_ she asked like a statement, and he said _no_ even though the word felt like a punch straight from his mouth. She didn't believe him, he could tell, so he sat down beside her, told the voice on the other end of his radio that he’d be a while and not to come looking, filled the silence in the warehouse with a bunch of ridiculous stories about growing up in the circus, about his first pair of hearing aids, about Barney and their dad and how all of that shit had fallen out. He tried to share his water and his protein bars with her—the way her eyes had sunken deep in their sockets hurt him. She didn't take a single bite or a sip. Nine hours later, she wobbled sideways for a split second before she caught herself, and even then, there was so much shame in the wobble, so much dignity in the catch, that he had to swallow hard. _Please let me help,_ he begged. Another hour later, she nodded. He helped her up, helped her walk, and when her knees gave out a few steps later, he swung her into his arms and she didn't weigh a thing. She nestled into his arms like a child, and if Coulson had tried anything when they got to the safehouse, Clint honestly thinks he might’ve killed one of his oldest friends. She was his from that moment, and it doesn’t much matter that she doesn’t love him exactly the same way. It doesn’t much matter that at moments like this, he has no idea what's going on in her head—he knows her better than anyone else alive, but that doesn’t mean he knows her well.

Tony takes a few steps forward, into the wet, and glances down at Natasha. The faceplate comes up. Quietly, he says, “I’m gonna go into the kitchen and try to get Jarvis rebooted. I won’t be far.”

If you need me, he means.

Natasha nods. Her gaze never wavers from Barnes and Steve. Tony walks away, already talking softly to himself, the Iron Man suit making squelching noises in the carpet as he goes, and it stirs Clint’s stomach. _Don’t throw up_ , he tells himself.

Barnes’s sobs have tapered off. It’s easier to hear Steve now, as he whispers, “It’s a bad day, Buck, but they happen. It’s a setback. That’s it. We’re gonna keep going, and it’ll get better.”

“A setback,” Barnes says. His voice sounds even rougher now, a garbage disposal with a fork jammed in there. “It’s been a year. All that work. All that therapy. All to be. A person again. And I lost it. In five seconds.”

“No, that’s not—”

“It didn’t help.”

“It _did._ It will.”

“Lost it all. Right back at it. Five seconds.”

“No, Buck, it’s not—”

“A year, a year of being a person, and it’s gone. Five seconds. And I’m right back where I was—”

“You’re not, though, this isn’t the same—”

“Look what I did, Steve!” Barnes shouts, and sits up, fast and terrible, like a vampire in a coffin, and Natasha tenses in Clint’s peripheral vision as Barnes’s hands stretch upward, but he’s only grabbing Steve’s cheeks, turning his head, making him face it. “Look at it!”

Tony falls silent in the kitchen.

Steve resists, trying to yank away.

“I don’t—” Barnes says, not yelling anymore, but loud, still angry, still rough, “I don’t want to be this anymore. I wasn’t supposed to be this anymore. I’m not. I can’t—”

Steve wrenches free, smacks at Barnes’s hands, hard enough that the flesh one, at least, pulls back to his chest. A moment later, the other one falls too, landing vampire-like again, crossed on his chest. Steve’s still straddling his belly, out of breath, angry too now.

“It will work,” Steve says harshly. “You just have to—”

“It won’t.”

“It _will._ ” Steve’s best trait, his undying stubbornness, is in full display. He’ll fight his way through Barnes’s doubt if he has to, the same way he’ll go up sixty flights of stairs and an elevator shaft. He’ll make a path no matter the barrier.

Barnes shakes his head faintly. “And next time?”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“Yeah, because Hydra is known for giving up. If one head is cut off, two more shall put their weapons down and go home, right? That’s how it goes?”

“Bucky.”

“They’ll come for me again. They will. They don’t give a shit if I’m in the most secure tower on the planet, they'll get in.”

“It’s not that secure,” Steve says.

“I can hear you,” Tony mutters from the kitchen.

“They’ll come, and I’ll be this again, and it’s never gonna stop.”

“Then we’ll get you better and next time, you’ll be able—”

“I’ll still be this.”

Steve exhales hard, frustrated. “Bucky, stop it, it’s like you’re giving—just…”

“I’ll do this again.”

“Then I’ll stop you again.”

“And if you not there? What if you’re on a different mission when they come? What if I’m at a coffee shop? What if the next person who tries to stop me from killing is a cop? Someone with a family? A good guy? A teenager—”

“Stop it,” Steve mutters. “Just stop.”

“What if I hurt someone decent? I didn’t recognize Natasha a few minutes ago. I tried to hurt her.”

Clint glances at her. She’s studying the carpet now. The red, wet carpet. Clint follows her gaze down. There’s blood on his boot. He lifts his head quickly.

“And I stopped you,” Steve says. “I’ll always stop you. I’ll always be there. It’s gonna be okay, Buck.”

Barnes laughs, a jagged, sharp thing. It hurts Clint’s ears. “No one can. This is—it’s rolling on. It’s the same ride since Azzano, and I can’t figure out how else to get off. You can’t stop it. All you can do is go down with me.”

“Then I will,” Steve says, mulish. “With you to the end of the line, remember?”

Quietly, Barnes says, “I think we’re there, pal.”

For a second, Clint doesn’t get it. And then he does. At the same time that Steve, blue eyes wide with disbelief, says, “No.” He sounds so young. Clint’s never been that young. He hadn’t thought Steve ever could’ve been, either, not after everything he’s been through. Or maybe everyone’s young in this situation, when it’s the person you—

Clint doesn’t look at Natasha.

“Don’t talk like that,” Steve adds. “Don’t you ever. Don’t—You— Fuck you. Don’t.”

“There’s something I need you to do, buddy.”

“Don’t you ever fucking—don’t you fucking ask me to—

“What am I, stupid? I’d never ask _you._ That’s not—it’s taken care of, I just need you to promise me that you’re gonna let Nat run herd on you for a bit afterward.”

There’s a brief pause, and then Steve’s head comes up and looks at Natasha, and now Clint has to look at her, doesn’t he? She’s lost her Russian Face. Now she’s blank, her eyes steady as Steve stares at her, betrayed and sick and furious. Clint eases toward her a bit, worried Steve might try something, might pull a move reminiscent of Barnes’s charge earlier. There’s a promise in Steve’s gaze, a _we will discuss this later,_ but Natasha doesn’t blink.

Steve turns his attention back to Bucky and says, “Fuck that. I’m not— _Her?_ You asked her? She said yes? And after she…you want me to let her…God.”

Clint watches her, and she finally returns his gaze. There’s a _yes_ in her face. She was probably been expecting it from the moment she met Barnes. She tips her head sideways, a prod, and Clint nods. He remembers. He promised to kill her once, if the reconditioning didn’t take, back when he first brought her in. She was pacing the cell she was in, all potential violence, a tiger on the prowl, and she demanded it. She didn’t trust SHIELD, she said, but she trusted him, and if they couldn’t get her right, or worse, used her wrong against her will somehow, she wanted to know there was a way out. A way to contain her. Part of being a good guy, she said quietly, was making contingencies for if you went too far. Bad guys never did that. That was the line of demarcation.

Clint said yes at the time, lied to her face, right through his teeth. Made a promise that he had zero intention of keeping.

Now it sends a shudder through him. Nat keeps her promises. Clint can almost hear Barnes asking her, _will you? If I cross the line again, go back to what I was, will you promise you’ll take care of it? No matter who gets in the way?_

Clint never told her that he lied. She wouldn’t forgive him. That would be it for them.

“We’re not there yet,” Steve’s whispering. He sniffs, his voice getting thicker. “We’re not even talking about it. That's never going to be the right answer, Buck. Besides, we’ve got so many good things left. So many chances. Good things to try for. Remember, hey, you remember when we went to the Grand Canyon last spring? How nice that was? That was a good time, huh? Remember?”

Clint remembers diligently uploaded photos of the trip to the group chat, some of which were spectacularly framed with Steve’s artist’s eye: stretches of red-brown rock far as the eye can see, steep drops into shadowy crevasses, the sun setting behind stark horizons. Others were less impressive: Steve grinning maniacally into a selfie with Barnes listless beside him, dutifully arranged for the camera, gaze distant. Clint remembers Natasha looking at the pictures and saying, with a trace of something in her voice that a younger, more hopeful Clint might’ve termed sorrow, “Steve went to the Grand Canyon alone and just never noticed, didn’t he?”

Steve’s saying, “We’ll take another trip. How about that? South this time? Or wait, how about California? You like California, don’t you? Hey, everybody likes California. What’s not to like? Beaches, good weather, a couple museums. We’ll go. Something to look forward to. A reward, you know? When Dr. Smithson says you’re a little more stable, we’ll go. It’s gonna be fun.”

Barnes says gently, “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

“We’re gonna make this better. You’ll keep working, keep going to therapy. Your medication needs adjusting, maybe. We’ll figure out—”

“I want to be a man again. Not a monster. Steve. _Steve._ Listen to me.”

“You’re not a monster,” Steve says tightly.

“I got a gallon of blood on me that says otherwise.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Barnes sighs, lets his head fall back. He stares up at Steve for a long minute, and Steve stares back. They have a megatree moment, nothing that could be put into words, and then Barnes says softly, with such warmth, such love, that the rustiness in his voice almost vanishes, “Steve Rogers. Sentinel of liberty, bastion of decency. Still that kid from the alley, protecting the littler kids, doing the right thing no matter the cost. Except where I’m concerned, huh?”

Steve’s brow creases. “Buck? I don’t—”

“There’s no excuse you wouldn’t make for me, is there? There’s no atrocity that I could commit that’ll ever make a dent.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, and his voice breaks.

“After all this time, I’m still doing Hydra’s work. Corrupting good things from the inside out. Don’t you see, Stevie, what I’m doing to you?”

And Steve does see. Clint thinks he does, anyway. Steve kneels there in the blood, staring down at Bucky like he’s a stranger, his mouth open and soft, his gaze wide and stunned and blank, his shoulders flinching. He shakes his head once, compulsively, makes a noise of denial straight from the gut, like the air inside him rejects the very idea.

Clint thinks _c'mon, please,_ but he's not sure exactly what he's hoping for. Beside him, Natasha’s holding her breath. Tony’s silent behind them. All of them waiting as Steve teeters on the line.

Barnes is staring up at him, every muscle tensed, every cell in his body poised, pleading, begging.

And then Steve says, “We gotta get you cleaned up, buddy. Get this blood off. You’ll feel a lot better. Be surprised how much better you’ll feel. We'll call Dr. Smithson as soon as you're clean. New therapy reward, right? Trip to California. Just got to get you cleaned up, sweetheart."

Barnes sinks back, everything going limp. His head hits the carpet with a thud. His gaze goes past Steve’s shoulder to the ceiling, blanks out. “Okay,” he says dully. “Okay, Steve. Okay.”

Something in Natasha has sagged too. She doesn’t move as Steve gets up, as he hauls Barnes to his feet. He eyes Barnes carefully, never looking away, as if he’s afraid Barnes might vanish on him if he does. Clint doubts it. Barnes moves like he’s older than the Grand Canyon, like his body isn’t his own anymore, like he doesn’t know how to drive it. Steve gently herds Barnes into the bathroom, and the door shuts.

The sound of the shower comes on.

Clint glances at Natasha. Her eyes flinch from his, and he understands.

“God,” he says, even though he doesn’t believe in God. It’s just a word, the closest one in size to what he needs, what he means.

She takes his hand. He clings back. The traitor voice in his head stays silent for once. Lets him see it for what it is—a heartbeat of contact, skin filling in for something else, something harder to reach. It’s not enough. Not even a grain of sand compared to what he wants from her, but the traitor voice doesn’t give him an iota of misinterpretation. Clint’s horribly relieved. He hadn’t known how terrible it could be, listening to the traitor voice. Maybe it won’t come back. He hopes not. He wants to touch her hand and know what it means for her and have that be the only possible answer, the only possible story in his head. He sees where it can go now, to believe the wrong one.

Maybe Natasha’s right about love being for children.

Adults know about endings.


End file.
